ROUGH RIDGE COTTAGE, OTUREHUA, IDA VALLEY

Discover the wildness, the peace, the fierce weather and gentle sunsets of Central Otago. 

Discover the people, the places, the landscape.

Discover Oturehua.

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Rough Ridge Cottage is a two-bedroom modern and brand new haven sleeping up to five guests,right in Oturehua. 

Views to Rough Ridge on one side and the Hawkdun Range on the other make splendid sunrises and sunsets. 

The main street is rarely interrupted by traffic, except for Rail Trail bikers, sheep being driven through town or one of the few dozen local characters.

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Rough Ridge Cottage is just 2 minutes walk from the historic Oturehua Hotel, serving hearty dinners, and New Zealand's oldest shop, Gilchrist's General Store, est. 1899.

The Rail Trail passes seconds from our front door and our neighbours are some of New Zealand's best-loved poets, writers and artists, who have sought the sanctuary of Central Otago ~ a Timeless Land.

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OTUREHUA

is no place to gawp.  Celebrities

don't stop here to shop

hence there's no paparazzi,

and tinsel's short-lived

though jazzy in a nor'wester.

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The glamour's in the land

and skies and what they nourish

within. The real troubadours

are wind and water and sunshine

and the brilliance of the starlight.

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You'll not find beggars

or buskers here, and if

you're wanting botoxing

you'll be shit out of luck

unless a bit of filler from the garage

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would do.  But they don't do

re-bores anymore, and most

of the servicing is left to Barry's

bulls and rams.  As for

'significant venues', think historic store

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and engineering works, churches,

backpackers, sale yards, cafe and a pub.

And after the final debauch, if you

fancy a long view of Mt Ida

and Rough Ridge, there's still room

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for another headstone in the graveyard

at Blackstone Hill.  It's not

far away up a dusty back road

that's been that way

for longer than most can remember.

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by Brian Turner